This is the first in a series of posts about hair and how it plays into our concepts of beauty/physical attractiveness, gender, and culture. I’m currently seeking writers and bloggers who wish to contribute to the series by writing a guest post. Contact me if you are interested.
Embracing the gray: Why I stopped coloring my hair
I started experimenting with hair color as a teenager. It was the ‘80s, and punk style was everywhere. I wanted hair like Cyndi Lauper, but in my small town, the closest I could get was to buy a bottle of Sun-in, a spray-in hair lightener. I sprayed it all over my head and sat in the sun until my dark brown hair turned a brassy shade of red. It probably looked like hell but I felt like a super star.
Since my teens I’ve worn my hair nearly every color imaginable: blonde, various shades of red, even jet-black. Coloring my hair was partly for fun and adventure, but I think a deeper reason was that I didn’t feel like my “real” hair was good enough.
Hmm, I wonder where I got that idea.
Watch any commercial for hair color and you’ll see the “ideal” hair portrayed as long, straight, and usually blonde. We’re promised easy ways to “enhance” our hair color, and cover those “unsightly” and “stubborn” grays. And have you ever seen a makeover show that didn’t involve hair color?
It’s estimated that between 65 and 75 percent of women in the U.S. dye their hair.
Those statistics no longer include me. Last year, I decided I’d had enough. Enough of the expense, the upkeep, and enough of applying god-knows-what chemicals to my hair and scalp.
I admit it hasn’t been easy, especially once I realized that my hair has more gray than I expected, and much more gray than my husband has, even though he is five years my senior.
It’s difficult to shake off decades of cultural conditioning that taught me gray=old and that old=unattractive. I’m working through it, though, and I’m learning to like the look of my real hair.
With a few more haircuts I should be rid of all of the old color. I’ll post a new picture when that day comes.
How have cultural norms and expectations about hair affected you? Has your self-esteem suffered because your hair doesn’t fit the beautiful hair “ideal?” Start a discussion by commenting on this post.
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Photo: House of Sims
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It’s interesting that, according to mainstream media, the ideal body type is to be as skinny as possible, but hair is to be voluminous and fat (as long as it’s not frizzy, of course). Neither ideal is obtainable if one wants to also be healthy, and both succeed at making many of us feel badly about ourselves. I’m ready for a magazine that applies NO airbrushing/enhancing/manipulating to its photo spreads. Wouldn’t that be refreshing?
I had been going around about this for a few years since I hit 50. I did not want to be a 60 or 70 year old without any gray. But how to transition? I tried to research this topic but no one was talking about it so I made my own plan. I ended up just doing the very top (root area) and front of my hair with the little touch up product that came out a while back until 85% of my hair was grown out – which of course was the part without much gray. Then, as I grew it out, I started going to an excellent hair dresser and she just weaves a little bit of color back into the very top and front of my hair. Now she is just doing temporary color. It has made the transition easier and now I am getting more comfortable with it and am almost ready to just let it go totally natural. But, it took about 4 years from the day I stopped coloring my whole head. I think we all have to do it at our own pace and this is what worked for me …… just wanted to share this story because I’ll bet there are others who are lost about how to transition. I do wish I had stopped earlier ….. it would have made it easier. And, the funny thing is – my mother had lovely gray hair so I always knew mine would be just fine. It is just our mind set and I am glad more women and just saying – NO to the whole thing.
Gayle, that’s a great way to approach the transition. I bet your gray hair looks stunning.
When I was little in the early 60s, the big style was straight hair with a flip at the shoulders and straight bangs. I had curly hair but wanted that helmet look BAD. So mom took me to a beauty parlor for a reverse perm. I ran from the chair to throw up and came out with limp-looking, kinda-straight hair. I never tried straightening again. But I had great coloring and cutting fun for decades. Our hair is one of the few things we can actually change up at will and I embraced that. I had long hair parted in the middle, an Afro, a mullet, spike-straight hair and a pink tail, plus white stripes going down the side of my head, red with blonde highlights, eggplant, blues and all shades of brown. (I could never bring myself to dye my hair jet black – my favorite hair color.) Through it all, I never felt pressured to fit into society. Now I’m in my 50s and still don’t care. I have a wild grey chunk at my right temple and the rest is slowly filling in with grey. If it were possible, I’d have it all grey – a color I love. Until then, I leave it alone or, if I get a wild hair (pun intended), go to the salon and have some semi-permanent color put in, but leave the grey chunk alone. Looking at the color samples (like your picture) is like being in a candy store. I say do what YOU like and forget about what “society” thinks.